The growth and competition in the casino gaming market in recent years and the increasingly sophisticated and complex technology being integrated into the gaming environment, at the individual game, casino management, and auditing levels, presents both challenges and opportunities to game manufacturers, gaming establishment operators, and regulatory agencies. The technological capabilities and requirements of, for example, advanced electronic games, multi-site gaming operations, detailed player tracking, wide area progressive jackpots, and various alternatives to the use of currency and coins by players, all present a potentially huge pool of ever-changing data which can be of great value to casino operators (from a management standpoint) and to regulators from an audit/compliance standpoint.
One area that has received a lot of attention in recent years has been providing added incentives to players of electronic gaming machines, such as video slot machines video poker machines.
One type of award may be selected at random or be based on a player's previous level of play. Once a player has met the selected criteria, the award in credits paid from the machine's hopper is released.
Players may also be given an incentive through a player tracking club. Usually, a player is identified during play by a player tracking ID card and/or a player identification number (PIN). The player tracking system tracks the player's play and awards player tracking points according to established criteria. The player tracking points may be redeemed for prizes, such as complimentary meals or merchandise.
Another type of incentive is given through a progressive jackpot award. A progressive jackpot award is a constantly accumulating award based on coin or credit-in, i.e., the tokens played by players, on a plurality of predetermined gaming machines, such as slot or video slot machines. The progressive jackpot award has a minimum value and increases until some maximum value. The progressive jackpot award is awarded to the player under some predetermined conditions.
However, these systems are inflexible and do not provide the casino operator with the maximum benefit and advantages available from the information and systems now available.
The present invention is aimed at one or more of the problems as set forth above.